[SOLVED] Wifi not working on setup of Raspberry Pi 0W

[studieredcorn (Studie)]

• Platform information:Raspberry Pi 0 W
  • Hardware: CPUArchitecture/RAM/storage
  • OS: what OS is used and which version
  • Java Runtime Environment: which java platform is used and what version
  • openHAB version: 1.5
• Issue of the topic: Could not connect to wifi
• Please post configurations (if applicable):
  • Items configuration related to the issue
  • Sitemap configuration related to the issue
  • Rules code related to the issue
  • Services configuration related to the issue
• If logs where generated please post these here using code fences:

It took many hours to learn that the Raspberry Pi 0W does not work on channel 10 or 11 of wifi. Once I changed my wifi router settings to another the setup proceeded much smoother. I recommend updating the wifi notes in documentation with this.

[aditya_Sharma]

I dnt understand, does OH run on Pi0W??

[Bruce_Osborne]

It took many hours to learn that the Raspberry Pi 0W does not work on channel 10 or 11 of wifi. Once I changed my wifi router settings to another the setup proceeded much smoother. I recommend updating the wifi notes in documentation with this.

The only Wi-Fi settings I know of are the country settings in raspi-config which must be set to the proper country to be legal.

[rlkoshak (Rich Koshak)]

I dnt understand, does OH run on Pi0W??

It’ll run. There’s just barely enough RAM for it to work. But you can’t create anything but a very tiny configuration (one or two add-ons) before running out of RAM. It’s also slow as can be.

I recommend updating the wifi notes in documentation with this.

An RPi 2 or better is the official minimum recommendation. An RPi 0W is weaker in RAM and CPU than an RPi 2 so it is not an officially supported platform. You can try to run on it but we cannot be held responsible for documenting gotchas with unsupported platforms.

NOTE: I do see that the docs were a little misleading on this point. It says “RPi 2 or newer” which isn’t really correct. It should say “RPi 2 or better”. I’ve submitted a PR to correct the docs.

Initial check in for Ephemeris Time of Day

The Raspberry Pi Zero W is below the minimum recommended specs. The RPi 0W has the same specs as an RPi 1. An RPi 2 is the minimum recommended, RPi 3 or 4 is preferred if going the RPi route.

[aditya_Sharma]

Yes. And I think one should get an Orange Pi PC or One or Zero instead of RPi Zero W if you want to run OH because they are about equal in performance to RPi2 for price of ZeroW.

[rlkoshak (Rich Koshak)]

Usually it’s not cost that drives people to an RPi 0W, it’s either that’s what they happen to have on hand or they have a form factor constraint that makes something like the Orange Pi PC or One too big. The Orange Pi Zero has the same major limitation as the RPi 0W, not enough RAM.

OH is primarily RAM constrained, not CPU constrained.

[aditya_Sharma]

okay. agreed. thnx

[studieredcorn (Studie)]

OpenHab v1.2 stated “full support for RPi0W” (https://github.com/openhab/openhabian/releases). I assumed incorrectly that versions since would also have that support. I can definitely confirm the running out of RAM on RPi 0W. It has been a frustrating entry point to Openhab.

[rlkoshak (Rich Koshak)]

It’s dangerous to rely on a nearly three year old release note to determine what it or is not currently supported in any software. A release note is a snapshot of the software at as point in time, and as such they are not updated as the software changes and evolves.